Chapter 82: S#14. Pet Shop (2)
by fnovelpia
– The axe murderer had not yet realized it.
If the cat didn’t survive the week, he would be the one buried instead.
An absurd narration.
I lowered my voice and protested.
“Wait a minute. You have something to tell me, right?”
Last time, when I dealt with the subway meat & vegetable couple, the narrator had promised.
If I reconciled the couple, I would be told the truth about the world.
But after successfully completing the mission, the narration abruptly stopped.
It was time to hear the crucial part I had missed then.
-…The murderer began to talk to himself.
“Don’t f*ck with me.”
-It was a chilling statement.
-What did the flickering madness desire?
-A freshly cut, hot heart from a chest?
-Another slaughter that would summon a sea of blood?
“Haa, damn it…”
It acted as if the listening period had expired. I felt cheated.
The cat inside the iron cage was at death’s door. Its life was wagered on a strange bet.
If it survived the week, ten thousand dollars. If it didn’t, I would be buried instead…
It was utterly unreasonable.
But it was too early to despair.
Nancy turned her head to look at me.
“Summer, why are you smiling?”
“I just thought of a way to get the ten thousand dollars.”
There was a sure way to save the cat.
The next day.
I took the cat ‘Pluto’ to work.
On the counter of Hyper Pharmacy, there was a birdcage I had never seen before.
Inside the birdcage was a parrot with a broken beak.
“What’s with the parrot?”
“Yesterday, Hilda and I went to a pet shop.”
Zelda Hyper said.
“The owner there said he’d give ten thousand dollars if we could keep this parrot alive for over a week. So we brought it right away!”
It seemed he made the same proposal to Nancy and me.
It was a good opportunity.
“Zelda, Nancy and I also brought a cat. But it’s in very bad condition. Its insides are all ruptured, it could die any moment. Do you have any effective medicine?”
“I have a top-grade nutrient injection for the parrot.”
It was said to be a painkiller that would ease the pain and extend life.
The Hyper sisters headed to the medicine preparation room.
Hilda Hyper took out a syringe from the shelf. Inside the transparent cylinder was a rainbow-colored liquid…
“Is that really a nutrient?”
“What does it look like to you?”
“Like a hallucinogen for magicians.”
The liquid bubbled inside the syringe.
Hilda injected the parrot and the cat with the syringe.
As the rainbow-colored liquid was administered, the dying animals’ eyes opened wide.
Their skeletons began to swell. Their joints and tendons thickened, and muscles became prominent.
Biceps bulged on the parrot’s wings. Firm abs appeared on the cat’s belly.
Heat rose from their sweat-soaked bodies.
It was the birth of a muscle parrot and a muscle cat.
Was it not a nutrient but a super soldier serum?
“Summer, how is it?”
“Uh… I think it worked.”
I told Zelda.
The parrot and the cat seemed like they could live not just seven days but seventy years.
Anyway, it was successful.
Thankfully, they had become excessively healthy.
“We earned ten thousand dollars as easily as a piece of cake.”
Zelda rejoiced. Hilda also looked satisfied.
Muscle-bound Pluto looked up at me with a mocking gaze.
When I put his now-heavy body back in the cage, he bent the iron bars with his front paws. It was an incredible strength.
The parrot kept shouting “Death!” while flapping its muscular wings.
In the cage, it would do handstands or hang from a small swing doing pull-ups.
Customers who visited the pharmacy were amazed at the bodybuilder-like parrot and cat.
After work.
Nancy was shocked to see the black cat proudly walking in on two legs.
“Oh my god, what is that…?”
“Don’t you recognize Pluto, Nancy?”
Honestly, it was understandable not to recognize him.
The pitiable, dying Pluto was no more. He had become a completely different creature.
Pluto flexed his well-defined muscles, showing off his bulging trapezius and deltoids.
After dinner, I happened to meet Ishikawa Reiko.
Reiko, who had come out into the yard, was sitting in a chair, petting a small rabbit.
The rabbit had one ear missing.
Could it be…
“I went to a pet shop out of curiosity and found it there. The owner just told me to take it.”
Reiko said.
The rabbit in her arms was on the verge of death.
I mentioned the Hyper sisters’ nutrient.
But Reiko had an unexpected reaction.
“No, the medicine is not necessary, Summer. This rabbit will die within a few days anyway.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because that’s the rabbit’s lifespan. No matter how much it struggles, it can’t change its destined fate.”
Reiko burned some kind of dried herb and held it to the rabbit’s nose.
The rabbit, inhaling the subtly spreading fragrance, seemed at peace. She said the smell of the burning herb had a pain-relieving effect.
Reiko gently stroked the rabbit’s back and looked up at the night sky.
The sparkling stars. I thought the rabbit might soon leave this place and go somewhere among those countless stars.
“…You shouldn’t take death lightly.”
Suddenly, Reiko said.
It was the same thing Littleman had said at the pet shop.
A strange sense of déjà vu struck me.
In the morning, Pluto’s condition worsened.
His pumped-up muscles remained, but he was as limp as a dried jellyfish without energy.
He even started coughing up blood.
In a hurry, I took him to the pharmacy and asked the Hyper sisters for a checkup.
“He’s unable to digest because of a ruptured intestine.”
Zelda said as she touched Pluto’s abdomen. Her face darkened.
Hilda wrote something on her palm and showed it to Zelda, who shook her head.
“No, the nutrient has addictive properties.”
It seemed she was suggesting an additional dose of the nutrient.
“Can’t you just administer it?”
“No. If his nervous system gets damaged, he will die in much more pain. It’s better to give him a painkiller.”
“He’s going to die anyway if we leave him like this.”
“Even if the nutrient saves him, he might become aggressive. He could attack people.”
Was I supposed to just watch him die?
“It’s unfortunate, but there’s nothing we can do.”
Zelda said in a sad tone.
The narration flashed through my mind.
‘…If the cat doesn’t survive the week, you will be buried instead…’
I hated the thought of Pluto dying, but more than anything, the idea of me being buried was the worst.
I was still young. There were so many horror movies I hadn’t watched yet.
Should I sneak into the preparation room and steal the nutrient without the Hyper sisters knowing?
While I was pondering, Hilda approached me.
Hesitating, she wrote something on my palm.
‘Should I secretly bring it to you?’
She meant the nutrient. I was thrilled.
When I thanked her in sign language, for some reason, Hilda was even more pleased and blushed.
Hilda secretly brought out the rainbow-colored nutrient from the preparation room, without Zelda noticing.
She injected the dying black cat in the butt.
Pluto, who had been groaning, revived like a dog. Thick tendons bulged under his fur.
It had an amazing effect.
The parrot in the cage was also bursting with energy. It looked like a pterosaur on steroids.
It shouted “Death!!” while shaking the swing.
Pluto had regained his health.
Contrary to Zelda’s concerns, his nervous system wasn’t damaged, and he didn’t die in agony or become aggressive enough to attack people.
Pluto was able to eat well, perhaps because his abs held his ruptured intestines in place.
Though his body was muscular, he had a gentle personality and was loved by Nancy and me.
Strangely, it seemed like he could understand human speech. He was a smart cat.
The ten thousand dollars from Littleman was becoming more tangible.
Nancy happily imagined all the things she could do with the ten thousand dollars.
Since the parrot at the pharmacy was also healthy, the Hyper sisters were running their own happy scenarios for the ten thousand dollars.
Hilda said she would buy me a gift. I didn’t know why she was being so kind, but I thanked her.
The day before the week from the adoption was up—
Pluto disappeared. He broke the window and ran away.
Nancy was worried. But she firmly believed that Pluto, being a smart cat, would come back home.
It was a mistake.
The next day.
When I arrived at the pharmacy, I encountered an unbelievable sight.
The parrot was dead.
The swing in the cage had broken, and the parrot’s neck was caught in the swing’s string.
The parrot hung there, its long tongue drooping out through its broken beak.
It looked as if it had committed suicide.
The door to the preparation room was slightly open.
Had the Hyper sisters come to work early? I opened the door and went inside.
It was Pluto in the preparation room.
He didn’t look healthy.
He was lying on the workbench, surrounded by broken syringe shards.
His nose was buried in a puddle of rainbow-colored liquid.
“Pl-Pluto…!”
I hurriedly ran over and lifted him.
But Pluto’s heart had already stopped. The cause of death was drug overdose.
I felt a sense of emptiness. Is this what it would feel like if my child died of a drug overdose?
It was the price of ignoring Zelda’s warning.
The parrot and the cat hadn’t survived the week.
Maybe, as Reiko said, fate couldn’t be changed.
Not only would I not get the ten thousand dollars from Littleman, but as the narrator predicted, I might be buried instead of the cat’s corpse…
A sense of dread overwhelmed me.
The front door of the pharmacy opened. The Hyper twins arrived.
“Summer~ You came to work early. But why don’t I hear the parrot?”
“Well… the parrot is dead.”
“What?!”
Shocked, Zelda stuttered as she went to the counter.
She signed the parrot’s death to Hilda. Hilda tilted her head in confusion.
Zelda spoke.
“…Summer. It looks like the parrot isn’t in the cage?”
That couldn’t be.
Zelda felt around inside the cage on the counter.
The cage was really empty.
Just a moment ago, the parrot had been hanging from the swing’s string in the cage.
What happened?
Suddenly, a thought I didn’t want to consider crossed my mind.
I quickly ran to the preparation room.
Pluto’s body was gone.
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